British housewives are world's biggest surfers

Average UK housewife spends 47% of her free time on the internet

A huge internet survey has discovered that British housewives are the world's biggest surfers - spending close to half of their leisure time online.

A massive poll by TNS of over 27,000 people in 16 countries came up with the startling suggestion that the average UK housewife spends 47% of their free time on the internet.

That knocks students, with a meagre 39% of their leisure time online, into a cocked hat.

Online, offline

TNS also discovered that 58% of the 2,500 British respondents claimed to have met up with someone in real life that they had made contact with for the first time online, lagging behind the more trusting Germans (79%).

A few other facts include Brits insisting that 25% of their friends were 'online-only', and the revelation that we have an average of 17 friends that we have met online.

So, statistically at least some of you out there reading this must be housewives who we've only met over social networks.

So we'd better wish you a Happy New Year and add you to our friends list.